Feature Articles

Glass bottles tossed in the trash are finding new life thanks to a collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Vitriform3D, an advanced manufacturing company. Together, they found a way to turn old glass into new products using 3D printing.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) created twin systems—one real, one virtual—linked in real time to reduce energy consumption and costs while ensuring safe drinking water. 

From the skies over Ukraine to the southern U.S. border, drones are transforming the nature of global conflict and domestic security. Unauthorized unmanned aerial systems, and efforts to detect, track, identify and mitigate them, shape homeland security operations daily.

On a clear April day in 2006, a team of engineers and scientists erupted with excitement from the control room of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), a newly built user facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A pulse of protons — racing at nearly the speed of light — shot from the accelerator and struck liquid mercury at the facility’s first target station, freeing tens of millions of neutrons. That moment launched a new era of discovery science that continues to shape technologies we use every day, from spacecraft to smartphones. As the challenges we currently face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project, ORNL once again stands at the ready to answer the nation’s need for AI‑accelerated innovation and discovery.   

The Versatile Neutron Imaging Instrument (VENUS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source has officially opened to users, demonstrating major advances in fast, high‑precision 3D neutron imaging. Early experiments led by Stuart Miller and Dayakar Penumadu validated a new dual‑camera system and transparent scintillator technology that boosts detection efficiency by 10–100× and sharply improves spatial resolution. Their results mark a milestone for neutron imaging, enabling clearer insights into materials—from composites to complex engineered systems—and underscoring VENUS’s role as a next‑generation tool for researchers across science and engineering.